Los Angeles is a town known for its health-conscious population—after all, we're talking about the land of Big Salads and endless green-juice cleanses. So when chef Jessica Koslow opened SQIRL, her two year-old cafe in LA's hip Silverlake neighborhood, the menu might have seemed like a bit of a head-scratcher. The main draw was warm, carby toast. And yet the masses lined up anyway, ready to drop four bucks on a thick slice of brioche topped with rich ricotta cheese and blueberry-rhubarb jam.

These days, Koslow's menu has expanded to a full menu of breakfast and lunch items focused less on bready wonders and more on vegetables. Sure there's meat on the menu—namely a chicken salad sandwich that manages to not feel like an excuse for excessive Hellmann's product placement—but the most inspiring dishes come from the vegetable kingdom. Think rice bowls topped with a woodsy sorrel pesto, sausage and a fried egg; an addictive mash-up of kale and tabbouleh known as kabbouleh; and slices of seared polenta cake, topped with wintery root vegetables, whey, scallions, and a fried egg.

And then there's SQIRL's shishito hash, a shining reason to never look at corned beef versions again. There's nothing complicated about it, conceptually. Take the widely popular breakfast hash (i.e., a protein combined with crispy, cooked potatoes) and replace the meat with shishitos, everyone's favorite mildly spicy green pepper. (Finally—another use for these chiles other than pan-frying them.)

If you don't have shishitos, you can easily substitute any similarly spiced pepper, like poblanos or pimentos de Padron. From there, your potatoes get steamed, smashed, and crisped up with peppers, cheese, and scallions on the griddle. This dish hits all the breakfast pleasure notes: crunch, a hint of spice, and rich base notes from the cheese, butter, and (sure, why not) a fried egg.

Can't live without the animal protein? No one's going to freak out if you make a side of bacon here. But just like you should try drinking great coffee black before adding cream, tasting the veggie version of this hash is key. Most people—including us—think it's perfect the way it is.